Former Black Widow Director Candidate Tears Into Marvel Studios

Director Lucrecia Martel had some less than flattering things to say about Marvel Studios and their practices behind-the-scenes. Martel, who is probably best-known for directing The Headless Woman and The Holy Girl, was approached by the studio to possibly direct the Black Widow movie and agreed to have a meeting to discuss the project. Though she can't discuss the specifics due to an NDA, she has some opinions on the way that Marvel Studios operates and their attitude towards female directors.

Lucrecia Martel appeared at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival where she talked about being asked to attend a Black Widow meeting with Marvel Studios. Recalling the meeting, Martel revealed that the studio wanted a female director because they were, "mostly concerned with the development of Scarlett Johansson's character." She then went on to claim that Marvel Studios doesn't trust women to direct action scenes. She explains.

"They also told me don't worry about the action scenes, we will take care of that. I was thinking, well I would love to meet Scarlett Johansson but also I would love to make the action sequences. Companies are interested in female filmmakers but they still think action scenes are for male directors."

Lucrecia Martel didn't stop there. She then went on to bash certain aspects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's important to note that the superhero genre isn't for everybody, and the Argentinian director doesn't seem like she would have been a good fit for Black Widow. She had this to say about MCU movies.

"The first thing I asked them was maybe if they could change the special effects because there's so many laser lights... I find them horrible. Also the soundtrack of Marvel films is quite horrendous. Maybe we disagree on this but it's really hard to watch a Marvel film. It's painful to the ears to watch Marvel films."

While Lucrecia Martel had some pretty unflattering things to say about Marvel Studios, she finished by saying, "But just in case any of this is going to be on YouTube, I would love to make Black Widow." That could be some sarcasm, but it doesn't matter anyway since the studio chose to work with director Cate Shortland for the standalone movie instead. Jac Schaeffer wrote the screenplay for the movie and production is expected to begin early next year.

Scarlett Johansson recently finished reshoots on Avengers: Endgame and she's preparing to suit up for the first Black Widow spin-off movie. MCU fans have wanted the standalone movie for quite a while, so it should be exciting to finally see the movie enter the filming stage. As for story details, those are being kept under wraps for the time being, but it is believed that it will be an origin story for the character. You can read the rest of the interview with Lucrecia Martel and her Marvel Studios opinions over at The Daily Pioneer.